


I Couldn't Bare Myself Before A Crowd

by paperclipbitch



Category: Sucker Punch RPF
Genre: F/F, Pre-Femslash, ridiculous fics that seemed like a good idea that the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The</i> High School Musical<i> thing is kind of insane, by the way.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Couldn't Bare Myself Before A Crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finkpishnets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/gifts).



> [Originally posted on LJ April 2011] Timeline: Okay, despite the fact this all happened over a couple of years, I’ve smushed everything together, so let’s pretend that _Sucker Punch_ filming, Zanessa breaking up and _Hellcats_ ’ earlier filming were all around the same time.
> 
> Other than that, this is self-indulgent as all fuck.

_There’s a girl that you might know  
She’s a friend – at least I tell you so._  
– The Ditty Bops

**i.**

Emily’s never been one half of a world-famous power couple so she doesn’t know what it feels like when one breaks, but Vanessa looks very sad and very small when she says _so, Zac and I are over_ , fingers curled into her palms and hair falling forward to hide her expression when she ducks her head.

Abbie’s the one who moves in first with a hug, wordless and warm, and Vanessa clings to her, fingers curling into Abbie’s sweater. She isn’t crying yet but her breathing is shaky and Jena’s looking helpless, biting her lower lip. They’re a family by now, of course; you don’t go through that much physical training with a group of girls without getting crazy close. Jamie fills in the other half of the hug, pressed to Vanessa’s back, and Emily forces herself to move, threading her fingers through Vanessa’s. 

Tomorrow, the tabloids will be all over this, messy and hungry, and Vanessa will have to be dignified and careful and explanatory; for now, they hold her tight, because what else is there to say?

**ii.**

They all smell like gunpowder now, all the time, it chases them off the sets and clings to their clothes and skin and hair. Making this movie is more than just filming by now, really; it’s a lifestyle choice, it’s a whole other world as deep as any of Baby Doll’s fantasies.

Vanessa’s got a jacket over her costume, hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee, and Emily drops down beside her, following Vanessa’s eyeline to where she’s half-watching Zack directing Jamie, making a variety of incomprehensible hand gestures. It seems stupid to say _how are you doing?_ because, well, break-ups are hard, especially ones like this, splashed about for everyone else’s schadenfreude. 

“Hey,” she says instead, because it’s soft and easy and light and doable, tipping a smile, and Vanessa responds with an over-exaggerated flutter of false eyelashes. Filming’s kind of weird that way; they spent months in training, sweatpants and exhaustion, hair dragged back and whole body sleek with perspiration, and now it’s all glamour, all heavy eye make-up and glitter. 

They’ve all seen each other at their worsts, and Emily doesn’t think she needs to say that she thinks Vanessa is beautiful whether she’s in make-up or whether she’s doing press-ups in a worn vest, exhaustion splitting her features. It’s just one of those things she knows, one of those things she feels, deep-down.

Vanessa holds out her coffee, the corner of her mouth flicked in one of those smiles that Emily finds sort of hypnotic, one of the ones she wants to capture and keep just for herself. Emily could go and get one herself from craft services, but it’s easier to sit here her and take a sip, pretending she can’t taste Vanessa’s lipgloss from where it’s smudged onto the rim. 

**iii.**

The _High School Musical_ thing is kind of insane, by the way. Emily’s privately ashamed to admit she had all these preconceptions before they met, before she knew Vanessa, and yes, that was bad, but hey: you can get _actual Barbie dolls_ of Vanessa. Kids run around with t-shirts with her face on. Jamie and Emily googled the merchandise one afternoon and you can get basically _anything_ with Vanessa on, anything you want. She’s world famous, she’s got an album that went gold, she’s a part of this crazy gigantic franchise and these movies that basically everyone has seen (even if they won’t admit it).

Vanessa herself is surprisingly down-to-Earth about it all, though she gets this slightly sheepish expression whenever you bring Gabriella Montez up. She’s a Disney girl, yes; but she’s hardly golden, given just how many naked photos of her have leaked online (Emily wants to ask, knows she shouldn’t, and has so far just about refrained from looking them up because there’s still kind of a line). 

“Dating Zac made sense,” Vanessa sighs one day over lunch, hair piled up on top of her head and falling around her shoulders in luscious waves that makes Emily more than a little jealous, given her one rather simple hairstyle she gets in this movie. “We were acting and then we weren’t and for a long time it was kind of an extension of these characters we’d played for so long that we didn’t even notice. And then we had to grow up.”

Emily doesn’t know what to say; it’s not a life experience she’s ever had.

Vanessa looks up, eyes dark and huge and ringed in heavy black eyeshadow. “Also Zac was orange a lot of the time,” she adds, and they both break into laughter.

**iv.**

Vanessa and Emily were born a week apart and maybe that’s why they bonded quickest; everyone else is a little older, if not a little more experienced – Vanessa seems to have had all the professional experiences she’s ever going to need for the rest of her _life_ – and they’re the youngest, the babies, if you will.

The fact Emily had a raging crush on Vanessa within fifteen minutes of meeting her has nothing to do with any of it. Really.

“Are we googling Vanessa naked?” Jena asks, leaning over to grab Emily’s laptop where she’s been trying to check her emails. She’s folded herself up in a chair next to Emily, looking like she’s made entirely of elbows and knees and lanky angles.

“Um, no?” Emily says. “Why would we google our friend naked?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ we?” Jena responds, fingers flying over the keys.

“It’s invasive,” Emily points out. “Also rude. And kind of tacky.”

Jena sighs and keeps clicking on things and Emily leans in to look because she can’t help herself. She’ll definitely remind herself to feel guilty later.

**v.**

Ashley Tisdale turns up on set ten days after the break-up in a pair of huge sunglasses that should look ridiculous but somehow don’t, and Emily belatedly recalls Vanessa saying something about her friend Ashley filming a TV series in Vancouver too. They don’t get a lot of time to watch stuff but Emily knows that Vanessa watches every episode and that it involves cheerleaders in some capacity or another.

Aly Michalka turns up too, because Disney is a mafia. Also, apparently, she’s been in a movie with Vanessa too.

Jena murmurs something into Emily’s ear about how incestuous this all is, which, yes, but Emily’s too busy trying to work out if she’s happy Vanessa has other friends nearby to comfort her or if she’s being ragingly jealous. The fact that Aly has this mass of blonde wavy hair that kind of looks permanently like she’s just had some really _good_ sex is possibly tipping the balance, but Emily’s not sure which way.

“We’ve come to get you drunk,” Ashley says brightly. “Like, really, really drunk.”

Vanessa giggles, one of those pretty giggles she hasn’t been making recently because everything’s a bit of a mess, and says: “did you wait until I had a day off?”

“Of course,” Ashley replies. “We’re all going to take you out and get you very drunk and it will make absolutely everything better.”

Emily kind of doubts the validity of this, but not enough to say ‘no’.

**vi.**

It turns out Ashley’s planned an actual _route_ for them to go on a bar crawl; she’s written it out in three different colours of marker pen. Aly rolls fond eyes when Jamie arches an eyebrow, but they’ve all got a day off tomorrow and they’re all tired of sitting around feeling helpless.

By the fifth bar, Emily is drunker than she meant to be and regretting wearing heels because everything’s wavery and unsteady and if she twists an ankle Zack might actually kill her and then everyone will be out of a job. Vanessa and Ashley are on the dancefloor, moving together slow and way too dirty, flashing lights catching in their hair, hands in the air with fingers constantly entangling. They look good together, way too good, and Emily doesn’t want to look and can’t tear her gaze away.

Aly and Abbie are doing shots in a way that they’ll probably regret in the morning, and Emily finally reaches a decision and slips her heels from her feet, dangling the shoes from two fingers as she makes her way to the bathrooms. This is a _nice_ club, the kind where everything’s a little too glittery, and she splashes cold water on her face for a while, taking deep breaths. When she looks up she almost doesn’t recognise her own reflection, cheeks flushed and eyes still smudged with make-up from the days’ filming, looking back at her.

The door bangs open and she whirls around to find Ashley and Aly have come in, but they’re paying no attention to her; they’re giggling in-between kisses, careless, messy ones, and Emily thinks _oh_ as Aly’s fingers slip under the hem of Ashley’s silk top. They’ve only got a thin veneer of privacy here and Emily’s not sure whether she ought to remind them of this, but she stumbles out, leaving them to it, something twisting in her stomach.

Later, Emily holds Vanessa’s hair back for her as she throws up, passing her glasses of water every now and then. She doesn’t feel much better herself.

“I don’t know if I ever loved Zac,” Vanessa says.

“Jena and I googled naked pictures of you,” Emily responds.

The hangovers the next morning are _vicious_.

**vii.**

“We come bearing _High School Musical_ ,” Jamie says cheerfully, brandishing DVDs, and Abbie’s grinning behind her with bags of popcorn.

“I hate you all,” Emily responds, letting them into her trailer because they’re her girls and shutting them out is depressingly not an option.

“It’ll be cathartic,” Abbie offers, though she sounds mostly amused and just a little doubtful.

It isn’t. Vanessa looks creepily young in the first movie and the films might be kind of entertaining and full of irritatingly catchy songs, but it helps nothing. Jamie and Abbie eat popcorn and laugh a lot and sing along and make inappropriate comments about Zac Efron’s hairstyle and general orangeness, and Emily wonders if she can get them to stop and knows it’s futile.

“I don’t think this really very helpful,” Emily tells them. “You know, in the scheme of things.”

Abbie responds by throwing popcorn at her and Jamie doesn’t bother taking her eyes off the screen, where Zac and Vanessa are holding hands and looking stupidly happy because they actually _were_ , and this would be why Emily’s never watched footage of a crush of hers and their ex before; it’s really kind of horrible.

Everything’s very brightly-coloured and sparkly and pretty and Emily _hates_ this, watching Vanessa laughing and smiling and dancing, part of this whole other world.

Jena shows up later with a copy of Vanessa’s album and the opinion: “if you’re going to have some kind of lesbian relationship with anyone on the cast it really should be me.”

Emily could be startled but she’s never startled by anything Jena says anymore, so she shrugs but says: “why?”

Jena smiles. “You know, working off all that tension Baby Doll and Rocket have onscreen.”

Emily takes the CD out of her hands. “Sometimes I wonder why I like you guys.”

“Because we’re sympathetic to your hopeless pining plight?” Jamie suggests.

Emily scowls but lets Abbie hug her anyway.

**viii.**

The press are eating Vanessa alive and it’s got to be exhausting though she never lets on; this is the woman who’s had to deal with repeated naked photo leaks and she grew up within the box of _Disney_ , after all.

“It’s kind of nice, getting to beat people up every day,” she admits on a wry smirk. “Let it all out.” 

Emily laughs because she’s meant to, but her eyes are on the way Vanessa’s mouth curves.

There are days when nothing goes right, when they’re shooting the same moment over and over and _over_ , and Emily’s tired and feels like her life is more of a mindfuck than even this movie is. And there are days when pictures of Zac Efron out partying with all kinds of girls draped all over him end up being circulated everywhere, and Vanessa looks tired and a little scared under her make-up, all the strength and power that these roles have given them faded and tattered at the corners.

Vanessa’s only not biting her lips together because it would ruin her make-up and things are dragging enough as it is, and Emily goes to sit with her because although she doesn’t know what to say, she has to do _something_. 

“I’m okay,” Vanessa says quietly, sweet and determined. “Really. It’s just new and different, you know?”

Emily nods and Vanessa leans into her, body heat and soft careful smile. “You’re worth more than a rebound,” Vanessa says quietly, and that’s a thought, and that’s, that’s- that’s _what_?

“Alright,” Emily manages through numb lips, and Vanessa reaches for her hand, linking their little fingers where no one else can see.


End file.
